The Digital Locke Project is a pilot project that makes a start with a scholarly text edition of the manuscripts of the British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). Locke’s most influential work is An Essay concerning Human Understanding. He produced several drafts of this work in the nearly two decades prior to its publication and he continued producing additions, corrections and other related material after the first edition had appeared in 1689.

In its first phase the Digital Locke Project has focused on the philosophical manuscripts produced after the first publication of the Essay, until Locke’s death in 1704. The website gives access to the transcriptions of these manuscripts, with text-critical apparatus, historical and philosophical notes, a description of all relevant manuscripts, and a reconstruction of the genesis of the texts. In December 2014 a total of 36 texts were present. Some illustrations are also available, namely digitizations of letters to and from Locke. The website reflects the often complicated structure of a single text that is based on more than one manuscript, and one single manuscript containing several texts.

Basic and advanced search are available. Under ‘Texts’, all available texts are listed. They are shown in a diplomatic transcription and in a normalized version, in two columns next to each other.